Fourth Time's The Charm
by wild wolf free17
Summary: ... except in this case. [oneshot]


_**Not my characters. Quotes are from movie. Just for fun.**_

_**Warnings: slash, het, spoilers for movie**_

**_The "Supernatural" hiatus is so bad I wrote this. Next will probably be a _New York Minute_ fic, or even another _Devour_. Gods, I'm pathetic. I don't know their ages, so if I screwed that up, too bad.

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_Dalton: So, uh… you think, uh, Carly and Wade are gonna stay together when she moves to New York? Because she be lookin' at me sometimes like—_

_Nick: Dalton, it ain't happenin'._

_Dalton: What? What do you mean?_

_Nick: And even if it was happenin'… it ain't happenin'. Nothing personal._

_Dalton: Why? You like me better than Wade, right?_

_Nick: Wade's not so bad._

_Dalton: Yeah, I like Wade, too.

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Carly's first boyfriend was a chauvinistic pig who constantly put her down. He was fifteen, she thirteen; Nick hated him on sight.

Nick had started acting out while Carly excelled at school; she tried talking to him, but he kept blowing her off. It pained him to hurt her and if he'd known it'd drive her straight to Dave, he'd have had a heart-to-heart with her every day of the year.

He knew of Dave at school, of course. Dave was good-looking, popular, an athlete. He had everything going for him.

Carly, in a vulnerable period of her life, ignored her instincts and said yes when Dave asked her out. He wooed her with kind words, flowers and chocolate. He charmed her mother and called her dad 'Sir'.

Nick watched from the living room door with a scowl and when Carly looked over, his eyes said, _You can do better._

She turned back to the conversation and tuned out the little voice that said, _He's right, you know_.

Carly spent five months with Dave. Nick never said a word to her about her boyfriend, but she knew Nick loathed Dave. Knew Nick wanted him gone. Knew Nick was right.

Dave laughed at her dreams and wanted more then she was ready to give.

The final straw came when Nick heard her sobbing in the bathroom. He demanded she open the door and she screamed for him to go away. So he picked the lock and softly padded in, freezing when he saw her curled around the toilet.

"Car?" he asked and she refused to look up, just continued sobbing and vomiting into the bowl. "Carly, please, tell me what's wrong so I can fix it." He settled beside her and reached out to touch her shoulder; she flinched away from his hand. He paused, assessed what he knew, and felt rage settle onto his soul. "Car?" he whispered, "Please tell me what's wrong."

She laughed, a hollow, rasping sound that made him wince. "He wanted…" she began and gagged, leaned back over the toilet and dry-heaved; and Nick decided she needed to be touched, so he wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened and then collapsed against him. "I thought—he wanted—I'm so sorry… I'm so **stupid**…"

Nick held her until she fell asleep and the put her to bed. He pulled the comforter up and tried to remind himself why killing Dave would be a bad thing. He slipped into bed beside her and fell asleep imagining ways to kill Dave.

It turned out Dave wrapped his car around a tree that night, so Nick was off the hook.

Carly never told anyone what happened, to Nick's knowledge.

Her second boyfriend was William, a year later. They met because of Dalton, Nick's best friend. William was seventeen, a senior; Carly and Nick had just turned fifteen. Nick despised him on sight—William was oily, a creep, but Dalton vouched for him. Dalton said Carly and William would 'mesh'.

Nick never listened to Dalton's advice again.

Three months after they got together, Carly came home crying with a bruise blossoming across her face. She hurried to the bathroom and locked herself in.

Nick stormed out of the house and tracked William down. William was just under six feet, more of an intellectual than a jock. Nick had hit his growth spurt and shot to six one. He wasn't an athlete but he was a fighter.

William didn't have a chance and he never bothered Carly again.

Carly took a two year break from dating and Nick began stealing cars. Dalton toddled in his wake, trying to act cool.

Carly tried to pull him back from the fine line he toed with glee, but he didn't listen.

And then she met Mark. Mark who made Dave and William look like gold. Carly and Nick had been eighteen for three months and Mark was twenty-two. Nick met him and contemplated slitting his throat right then and there.

"Don't you see what he is, Car?" Nick asked her later that night. "He's slime! Sludge! Not worthy of you." He stooped, trying not to loom over her; she'd never gotten past five three and hated having to look up at him.

She glared. "What do you know, Nick?" she hissed. "You're never around, always off stealing and fucking and flunking out of school."

For only a second did he consider hitting her. And upon the thought, the memory of her sobbing in the bathroom and beating William all to shit came back to him.

"Okay, Carly," he said softly, "I'll stay out of your life." He walked out the house and didn't talk to her for five months.

Paige told Carly to call Nick, to apologize. "You're twins," she said. "You need each other."

"You don't understand," Carly responded. "Nick only loves himself. I'm better off without him."

Dalton and Nick had almost the same conversation, with identical results.

"When Carly and him break up," Dalton asked, "you want me to date her? I'll treat her right."

Nick looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Ain't happenin', dude," he answered.

Carly broke up with Mark a week after she turned twenty and the police came by to ask about Nick's new car the next day. She met Wade later that month.

He was kind, considerate, funny, and hot. Too good to be true. The type of guy she'd always wanted and never found.

Wade asked her out and she said yes.

She never knew that Wade and Nick knew each other; separately, they'd both sworn she never would.

Two days before the car incident, Nick went to a bar. Wade was already there, downing water after water like a parched man and glaring at the wall.

"Problems?" Nick asked and sat on the stool beside him.

"Could say that," Wade answered.

"So why don't you drink some alcohol?" Nick slid a glass over to him and Wade glanced at it.

"I don't drink," he said shortly. "Drunkard dad taught me that."

"Oh." Nick drained the glass and ordered another. They were silent for a few minutes till he said, "I'm Nick."

"Wade."

Neither offered his hand and uncomfortable quiet reigned for another moment. Finally Wade made some inane comment about the sports or weather and a conversation started.

Nick was completely trashed by the time they left and couldn't recall where he lived, so Wade took him home and put him to bed.

Nick woke to scrambled eggs, toast, and chocolate milk. He had almost no memory of the night before and he ate breakfast, then left quickly with hardly a word.

Wade understood. He'd have been weirded out, too. That night, Nick came back. Wade opened the door and asked, "Yeah?" Nick, to both their shock, kissed him.

The next morning, Wade woke alone.

Two months later, Carly introduced Wade to her brother Nick and they both acted like they'd never met.

They rarely interacted and Carly figured the tension between them was Nick not liking Wade and Wade reacting. She misinterpreted the looks as _alpha male challenge_ instead of _I miss you_ and _that was the best night of my life._ She didn't know the biting remarks hid longing and regret and they both swore she never would.

Every single sentence Wade and Nick uttered to each other had a double, or even triple, meaning. And in two years, they were never alone together, never really had a conversation.

And then the road trip ended in Ambrose and they never had a chance.

A week after, back home, in her room, the twins finally curled up together and sobbed. Sobbed for Paige and Dalton, their best, best friends. Sobbed for Blake, who both had liked. And sobbed for Wade, who both had loved.

"I wanted to marry him," Carly whispered brokenly. "Nicky, I wanted to marry him."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered back and buried his face in her hair. "So sorry for everything you'll never get."


End file.
